Arrival in Uganda

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I'm a couple days behind on this journal so I'll try to catch up as soon as I can. Also I experienced a lot in my first couple of days so my first entries will be a bit long. I will hopefully be posting photos as well.

For those of you who don't know I am in Kampala, Uganda from June 17th until August 19th. I am working on a project through AIESEC called "swITch" where I am responsible for teaching high school students IT and then later evaluating their skills.

The 16th of June I left for Uganda from Montreal. Viviane came with me to the airport which was very sweet of her and I'm very happy she did. Although you may not believe it, I was a bit nervous leaving for Uganda (thanks Mike). It was one of those moments that the fact that I was leaving for Africa didn't really hit me until the day I was leaving. In the airport I kept thinking "what am I doing?" "Why don't I just stay in Montreal?" "Going to France with Viv would have been a nice alternative" "What diseases are there?" "Why is it that when I mention Uganda everyone only has a story about some friend of a friend who got some type of illness?" "How the hell am I going to teach IT to a class of students?"

My trip comprised of going from Montreal to Brussels, then Brussels to Kigali,Rwanda , in Rwanda we stayed on the plane and let off a few passengers before going to Entebbe, Uganda. The main international airport Entebbe is actually about an hour away from Kampala (The capital city and the city I am living in). I didn't have too many problems with the flights thankfully. I made an effort this time not to use United Airlines because either their service is very poor or I'm very unlucky when I fly with them. The total trip took me almost 24 hours.

I was supposed to arrive around 9:40pm but got in around 11pm. It was a bit interesting landing because it was so dark. Normally when you fly into a city you can look out the window and see the city lights however you don't really have that. You just see a couple of scattered lights throughout the landscape. I will probably get into more detail about the night later though. As I got off the plane I had to go through customs and I was a bit shocked to find the a visa for the country was 50 USD. I was picked up from the airport by Martin and a couple of other people from AIESEC. Martin was the person that helped organize my coming to Uganda. On the drive to the city I was able to talk to everyone in the car about Uganda I things I should know. It always made me a bit nervous looking at the road though because they drive on the left which always just feels a bit awkward at first. To get to where I would be staying we passed through the center of Kampala which honestly didn't look like much. It was late at night though. We finally turned onto a dirt road and arrived to the student hostel in which I'd be staying. I'll have to take a picture of what it looked like to me because the first impression when I stepped out of the car was "hmmm....this is a bit interesting". I didn't find out until later that the reason it looked so torn up and messy is because the building is under construction. It's a 4 story dormitory.

We walked into the hostel which is like an open air dormitory. I stayed with Martin and he told me that I would be changing rooms once mine was finished. I threw my stuff into the room and got a tour of the hostel and immediately thought "what did I get myself into". I've experienced a lot of different things and stayed in some pretty interesting places. I don't know why this one took me by so much shock. It may have been that I was very tired or that it was nighttime and I couldn't quite realize what I was looking at. The floors are concrete with dirt on them from the road. The rooms are essentially a concrete block with two beds with mattresses and a hook above it on the ceiling, a light bulb, a window, and two power outlets. That's it. No shelves or anything so I'll be living out of my backpack for the next 2 months. Luckily I brought my sleeping bag because I don't have bed sheets. I also previously bought a mosquito net which is what the hooks above the beds are for. The bathrooms are on the opposite side of the building on the floor below mine. In the bathrooms are wash basins so you can wash your clothes. There is an area with a TV and some plastic chairs to watch the world cup matches and a little area which you may be able to buy food sometimes.

I think why I probably didn't enjoy my first night is because I felt a bit trapped. I had no idea how to get clean drinking water, food, or anything since there are no stores within sight of our hostel. My first evening I met a couple of the other interns who are staying on my floor. They all reassured me that you'll get used to how things are done around here. I set up my bed and went to sleep.

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Photos

Bedroom
Here you can see where I sleep. Just a bed and dirty concrete floors

Hostel View
This is the view from my hostel

Hostel View 3
This is the building that I am staying in.

Food
Typical food of rice, plantain, beans, sweet potato, and something made from corn.